Housing crisis could be made ‘much worse’ by extending eviction ban, Martin says

The Government could make the housing crisis “much worse” by extending the current eviction ban, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said.

Mr Martin said he didn’t think if the ban was to be extended, that it could be done only in the “short-term”.

The Tánaiste was responding to Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy during Leaders’ Question in the Dáil on Thursday, who said the eviction ban was due to expire at the end of March and people were arriving at local constituency offices “in a panic”.

“The first thing you do in a crisis is not make that crisis worse,” she said. “There’s a very real fear that that’s exactly what’s about to happen.

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“We can all see it every week in our constituency offices, housing and homelessness and the prospect of homelessness is the number one issue.”

Ms Murphy said the ban on evictions had “postponed the inevitable for many” but that “the cliff edge is getting ever nearer”.

The Kildare North TD said in many ways the State had got to the stage where “outrage has disappeared and homelessness has almost become normalised”.

The Social Democrats TD added that if the ban was lifted “the floodgates on homelessness would really be opened”.

“What is a trickle would now become a torrent,” she said.

In response, Mr Martin said the Government was considering the issue, “not just from a legal perspective, but from a policy perspective also”.

“You’ve connected this to homelessness correctly, but the broader picture is supply of housing and supply of units ... The fundamental policy issue we have to consider is if we extend it, and I don’t think you could extend it for a short-term, because we need to be honest with the market, we need to be honest with those who were renting as well, what would the impact of that be on supply, would it make it worse?

“Politically, the simple sort of catch cry is extend the ban ... and then worry about the consequences later or indeed the consequences will be the Government’s problem and the Government’s fault.”

The Fianna Fáil leader said policy research had indicated that “you risk reducing supply and you risk increasing rents as a consequence of reducing supply and you make matters worse”.

Mr Martin said recent data also showed that 21,000 home sales last year involved landlords selling their property, while just 7,500 properties were bought by landlords.

“That means a net loss of 13,500 to the rental stock, you’ve got to ask yourself the question, why are smaller landlords leaving the market in droves,” he said.

The Tánaiste said there was a “real issue” that the Government could make the situation “much worse” and they wanted to build up supply.

He added that here were hundreds of people returning back to Ireland from abroad, some who were working on behalf of the State, who needed to get back into their homes.